Port of Beirut Renewal — World's Student Architectural Challenge

We hereby invite students from all around the world to join us and to contribute their work to the renewal of the hard-pressed city. Let’s make the dream of the founders of INSPIRELI AWARDS a reality. Let’s help Beirut to be reborn again!

In August 2020, a devastating explosion of about 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate happened in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon, completely destroying the port of Beirut along with the adjacent part of the city. Today, the Beirut municipality and the Inspireli Awards announce a unique architectural competition for all students of Architecture around the world who would enjoy contributing and helping with their ideas.

Aim and course of the competition

The aim is to offer humanitarian aid to the city of Beirut through the unique designs and innovations of students’ projects. The topic of the Beirut port renewal is about to be implemented in the curriculum of many Universities all around the globe for the winter semester of 2021, hence, all projects would be submitted by February 2022

Winners and prizes

The future port of Beirut will be rebuilt and financed by the F.D.B.O.T (Finance, Design, Built, Operate, and Transfer). The Port administration and the Ministry of Public work and Transportation are setting their requirements and conditions list which would shape the path of the future. Thus, the winners of this competition will have a chance to be a part of the team working with the Lebanese authorities when shaping the final looks of the port.

There will be two 1st places - a Lebanese Winner and an International Winner, 2nd and 3rd place and 20 special mentions. Winning projects will participate in the reconstruction of the port of Beirut under the F.D.B.O.T and receive financial prizes, certificates, and international mentions in the biggest architectural platforms in the world.

Instructions

The best about this project is its immense freedom of expression. There are almost no limits set, only that the crucial transport clusters of the port should be kept unchanged. 

„The blast caused huge destruction leaving the conventional cargo/free zone terminal, passenger terminal, and empty containers inoperative. Nonetheless, the container area is still partially functioning with half of the C-cranes shattered in addition to the internally destroyed administration area.

As mentioned before, it is not necessarily compulsory to keep the zoning on its previous configuration; yet, the port needs to operate appropriately with the minimum exploitation possible of the land, and by doing so, more room for economic and social possibilities for investment can be clutched. “

Competition Announcer:

Beirut Municipality (Lebanese republic Beirut City Council) and OEA – Beirut (Order of Engineers & Architects – Beirut)

Competition Organizer:

INSPIRELI AWARDS, Department of Architecture, CTU in Prague & Alexandre Zein (president and curator, ZEIN Engineering)

More about & documentation / WWW:

https://www.inspireli.com/en/awards/beirut-documents